Reservoir systems, such as petroleum reservoirs, typically contain fluids such as water and a mixture of hydrocarbons such as oil and gas. To remove (“produce”) the hydrocarbons from the reservoir, different mechanisms can be utilized such as primary, secondary or tertiary processes. In a primary recovery process, hydrocarbons are displaced from a reservoir through the high natural differential pressure between the reservoir and the bottom-hole pressure within a wellbore. In order to increase the production life of the reservoir, secondary or tertiary recovery processes can be used (“improved oil recovery” or IOR, or “enhanced oil recovery” or EOR). Secondary recovery processes include continuous water or gas (e.g., N2 natural gas, and/or CO2) well injection or combination of both water and gas, steam injection, and/or injecting additional chemical compounds into the reservoirs such as surfactants and polymers, while tertiary methods are based on secondary water injection followed by gas injection for additional recovery.
Deepwater reservoirs have become the leading potential regions among the newly developed oil and gas reservoirs all over the world. The development and utilization of the deepwater oil-gas resources are considered an important strategy to implement the sustainable economic development and ensure the energy security by many countries. One challenge in carrying out deepwater EOR processes is asphaltene precipitation. Studies have been conducted showing that asphaltene deposition is caused by the changes of pressure and temperature during deepwater operations. Also, laboratory investigations have demonstrated that when gas is injected into the oil, it causes precipitation of asphaltene due to composition changes.
Although there are well-known remediation methods for mitigating asphaltene deposition (e.g., via chemical injection, mechanical, or thermal operations in the well), there is a need for improved compositions and methods to mitigate asphaltene deposition in IOR/EOR operations, particularly in deepwater operations. This is due to the fact that conventional asphaltene mitigation methods do not yield long lasting remediation of the asphaltene issue.